New Legal Requirements for 2013 for California Business Entity Filings

Effective January 1, 2013, new legal requirements apply to business entity documents filed with the California Secretary of State's office.

If you have any questions or concerns about these new requirements, we'll be glad to help. You can call your service representative at 800.952.5696, email Christy McCullough at Christy@clasinfo.com, or share in the comments below.

Entity and Agent Addresses

• All formation/registration documents must include the business entity street address and mailing address.
• All foreign corporation and foreign limited liability company registration documents must include the street address of the principal business office address in California, if one exists.
• All documents listing an individual person as an agent for service of process must include the agent's California street address. All corporate agents filing a certificate pursuant to California Corporations Code section 1505 must include the California street address where process may be served on the 1505 filing. A post office box address for an agent of service of process will not be accepted on any document.

Future File Date Requests

• All future file date requests for corporation and limited liability company documents must be included within the document submitted or as an attachment to be made part of the filed document.
• Corporation and limited liability company documents received before January 1, 2013, with a future file date on or after January 1, 2013, must comply with the entity and agent addresses requirement listed above. This information may be included in an attachment as part of the filed document.

Copy Requests

• The Secretary of State will no longer endorse and certify customer-provided copies. However, a customer who submits documents with a filing fee of $25.00 or more will receive one (1) uncertified copy of the documents for free and, at the time of filing, the free copy may be certified for a $5.00 certification fee. Customers requesting additional copies will be charged $1.00 for the first page and $0.50 for each additional page. Each certified copy requires an additional $5.00 certification fee.
• Note: while domestic stock and foreign corporations are required to pay a total of $25.00 when filing the required Statement of Information, the total fees include a $20.00 filing fee and a $5.00 disclosure fee. Therefore, customers requesting copies of a Statement of Information (corporation or limited liability company) must include the copy fees described above.

We also sent a direct email bulletin concerning this topic on Wednesday, December 19, 2012.